Memphis City Council Chairman Berlin Boyd said Save IRV is “grasping at straws and looking for ways to manipulate votes,” in response to the group’s release Thursday of a video featuring actor Ed Helms telling Memphis citizens to vote no on three charter amendment questions.

The new video is the latest development in a heated debate over the three referenda dealing with City Council term limits and runoff elections.

“The fact that they’ve chosen a comedian to do a video advocating Memphians to vote against those questions shows their whole organization is a joke,” Boyd said.

The ballot questions

One of the questions asks Memphis voters if they want City Council members to be able to serve three consecutive four-year terms, an increase from the current two-term cap.

The second question asks if instant runoff voting, or ranked-choice voting, should be repealed. Memphis voters approved instant runoff voting, which Save IRV advocates for, in 2008 and it’s slated to be used in the October 2019 city election.

The last question asks voters whether runoff elections should be eliminated entirely for single City Council districts, making those races winner-take-all.

'I really don't know who Ed Helms is'

The Helms video follows the release last month of a Save IRV video featuring actress Jennifer Lawrence, who also made the case against the three charter questions. In the lighter advocacy video featuring Helms, he quips “I don’t think Elvis would have stood for that.”

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Actress Jennifer Lawrence opposes the three referenda on the 2018 Memphis ballots and sharply criticizes City Council members in this video.
Courtesy of Save IRV Memphis

“Remind the politicians they work for us, not the other way around,” Helms said in the video, whose video release coincides with the end of early voting in Shelby County.

Save IRV argues City Council members shouldn't be using taxpayer dollars to push a stance on ballot questions that could lengthen their political careers, while City Council members counter the pro-instant runoff voting group shouldn't have a "monopoly" on the public messaging leading up to the election.